


This Is How

by MrsWhozeewhatsis (OxfordCommaLover)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 01:46:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21236105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OxfordCommaLover/pseuds/MrsWhozeewhatsis
Summary: Written for the Fall edition of the 2019 Louden Swain FanFic FanArt Project for the song 'This Is How'.  Sam's POV during the beginning of season 8.





	This Is How

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not really sure if this wholly fits into the feeling of the song, but these are the scenes from SPN that keep coming to my mind when I hear the song.
> 
> Special thanks to @manawhaat for beta reading!! Love you, cupcake! ♥

He stopped because she made him stop.

“Don’t you think you’re responsible?”

Sam was pulled from his usual script by her brusque question. Some people would call her rude. He wasn’t some people, though. Since Dean died, he was barely people, at all. He’d perfected this act of being a person, much like when he’d lost his soul—making the small talk, doing the work, getting the money, paying the cashier, and moving on before anyone thought to ask for more—but she wasn’t letting him get away with it.

“Why do you think I brought him here?”

_ Yeah, that’s it. _ Outrage usually gets the especially pushy people to back off. Yes, he was responsible for the accident, but that doesn’t make him responsible for kibble and leashes, too!  _ How dare you, lady! _

She turned to her assistant and barked, “Roberta, could you hand this man his trophy on his way out, please?” Turning back to him with a sneer, she continued, “Well, maybe if you were such an upstanding guy, you wouldn’t have hit him in the first place?”

Later, he’d question what made him think to respond the way he did. Oh yeah, he wasn’t thinking, because he wasn’t a person, because Dean was gone. If it had been a giraffe, he might have still said, “Fine. I’ll take him.” That’s how ‘not a person’ Sam was, anymore.

Thank God it was just a dog.

***

As Dog improved, Sam began to feel how tired he’d been before Dog had run in front of the Impala. He’d been tired, yet restless. Always moving, but aimless. If he hadn’t hit Dog, he probably would have wrapped the car around a tree and killed himself, eventually. Man, Dean would be pissed when Sam got to Heaven and told him how he’d died. The fact that Dean being pissed about Baby bothered him more than the idea of actually dying should have been a red flag, but Sam hadn’t really seen color since he left that lab in the basement of SucroCorp.

The first color Sam truly saw since Dean died was lime green.

She was yelling about something while tossing around a bag of limes, and she made Sam stop again. She made Sam wake up and really see her, and the vibrant green of the fruit in her hand, whether that was her intention or not. He saw her, and in Amelia, Sam saw himself. That was the end of his running, of the act he’d been trying to keep up. They were doing the same thing, running from the same pain, only she was doing it better. She wasn’t depending on stolen credit cards and constantly moving from place to place without direction. 

Amelia Richardson was doing it right, and he suddenly wanted to do it right with her.

***

She tried to brush him off. She tried to pretend it was nothing, and it took everything he had to hold onto her. He needed her to show him how to be a person. Not just a person with a dead loved one behind them, but a person who didn’t hunt monsters and lie for a living. So, he held on, convinced her to stay, take things slow, and just let it be.

It took time, and it took work, but they made it. Riot got his stitches removed, then recovered completely. Sam moved into Amelia’s motel room, then they were hunting for a house. Little by little, a life together unfolded between them, creating a path towards a brighter future than Sam had imagined in almost a decade.

Of course, it came crashing down. He should have known it would. It always does. Not knowing what to do, now that everything had fallen apart, he headed towards Rufus’ cabin to lick his wounds.

***

It’s been months since Sam found Dean in Rufus’ cabin. It’s been weeks since Dean had ducked out and hunted with Benny, lying about it until he finally introduced Sam to the vampire. It’s been days since they hit Lousiana, and Dean had yet to jettison the vampire from his life the way Sam had done to Amelia the moment he’d realized Dean was alive. They’d each had their year off, but now they were back in it, pedal to the metal, yet Benny was still breathing. Not only was he breathing, but according to Martin Creaser, he’d been killing. Not that Martin had much to say since Benny had killed him, supposedly in self-defense.

Dean still wouldn’t hunt him. Still swore that Benny was innocent. And had pushed Sam back at Amelia, reopening the wound that hadn’t ever fully closed, just to protect Benny from Sam’s machete.

Sam was so tired of his brother, suddenly. Turns out, it only took a few months for him to get his fill after a year apart. If there weren’t so many larger concerns—demon tablets and angel tablets and ragged, rundown prophets and angels acting oddly—he’d go back to Texas and meet Amelia in that crappy motel room he used to call home before they got together. He’d leave hunting behind. Again. Let the world spin without him policing it and take it easy.

Sam walked around the pond behind the cabin and breathed in the night air.

But there were angels and demons and prophets and monsters and it all just kept on going and going without a break. And whether he liked it or not, he couldn’t leave his brother to deal with it alone. Even if his brother was a jerk who accused Sam of riding the fence when it was Dean who’d been getting splinters in his ass trying to keep up a friendship with a monster. Sam had to choose, if only to not be a hypocrite when he told Dean to choose.

With a pained cry, Sam kicked at a stone and sent it flying through the dark underbrush and into the water. He knew what he had to do, whether he liked it or not. In the choice between his happiness and saving lives, there was no choice. All he could do was take a moment to grieve before going back and standing up for the world.


End file.
